To want my child to have cosmetic surgery?

[Savethewhales1]

I have an 8 year old DD, her ears have always protruded quite significantly. Up until recently, shes never mentioned them, nobodies ever mentioned them to her. She was recently part of a weddings bridal party and while getting ready made a number of comments about her “elf ears”. It’s the first time I’d ever heard her mention them and made me really sad.

I’d like to solve this problem now, as I believe it will likely become an area of great insecurity for her in the future and avoid any teasing down the line (girls can be cruel). I also believe it may be available on the NHS while she’s a child. However, I don’t want to make her self conscious of her ears if she isn’t and cause the insecurity.

So, AIBU?
YANBU - get them pinned back
YABU - don’t risk making her insecure if she isn’t

Why are you calling them ugly ears?

Anyway, OP, please talk to your daughter. Only her opinion and yours counts at all in this scenario (and her dad's of course if he is in the picture). She should be your main guide, only you can decide if she is at risk of being harmed by bullying because of her ears.

Because they are ! Are you blind ? Don’t you know something pretty and something ugly ? Big ears ate ugly ! Would I ever mention this to anyone with huge ears ? Absolutely not . But people are not blind , this girl clearly is aware of her ears c the same way I was aware I was shifter than most of my classmates ( As an example ) .

1-2% is a hell of a lot of people when you think about it on a population level.

And I suspect most of us were bullied or at least teased for some physical feature at some point, and you can’t necessarily predict what it will be. I’m boss-eyed and was never bullied for it!

(this is not to say op shouldn’t get her dds ears pinned, but I don’t think having sticky out ears has to be a life sentence)

I like them on people. So there.

My DP has big ears. Huge and stick out. I don't think they are ugly at all. I really like them.
Would you tell a little girl that her similar ears are ugly?

Same.

My mum now has huge ears, because as you get older, they keep on growing.
I have silly little ears and hope they catch up soon.

It's a tiny amount of kids at school though - that's the whole population, not 1-2% of school children, 1-2% of absolutely everyone.

If you can take a target off your kids' back, you should.

There used to be a "suck it up it will make you tougher" approach to bullying - but in reality regular bullying just makes children miserable, can affect them for life, cause mental health melt downs and suicidal ideation and can make them hard like a sheet of glass - fragile but not tough at all.

Bullying as a child can have life long consequences, when your brain is still forming is the worst possible time to have to tolerate bullying.

Obviously, it would be great if we could get rid of bullying, but as that won't happen OP should focus on her child's needs.

The older you are before you experience serious bullying the better you will be able to cope with it without lifelong consequences.

OP should be guided by her child in this.

It's a tough one, but if she does do it, she is not doing the wrong thing for her child.

OMG i didnt even notice hahah. I was like why is this poster sending me this GIF

It’s a hard one. One of mine has elf ears, similar to the photo you posted but with pointy upper section, they look pretty much exactly like the elves in the Lord of the Rings movies. They have never had anything but compliments and have only been a positive talking point. In fact if they ever do a really bouffant curly hair style people express disappointment as ears don’t stick through. Apparently, it’s also been the most used wanna be pick up line they hear ‘has anyone ever told you, you look like a beautiful elf’, ‘yes, a million times, all throughout my life’🤣. I believe they would be devastated to think I would have thought to ‘fix’ them when they were a child, and honestly it never crossed my mind, I always thought they looked super cute.

I literally said above I would never tell anyone directly .

But you think they are ugly? Why? What sort of social conditioning made you feel that way?

I would wait and see whether this is something you're daughter asks for herself when she's older.

Because I think if you swoop in and change something that is not medically necessary it sends a message that she is not good enough as she is naturally and you are taking away her right to choose how she wants to look. If one of your children had an unusually large nose would you feel that this should be changed also? Is it important that they are "conventional" looking?

This.

The more we intervene to make everyone conform to an arbitrary ideal, the more difficult it becomes for those who don’t. Let’s just enjoy the fact we all look different, and teach children not to be nasty.

Whereas I have never met anyone with ugly ears. Just people with ugly minds.

My daughter had it done at a similar age. She was being teased and also insensitive family members had mentioned it. It was done on NHS without too much issue as they did protrude quite significantly.
She was glad to have it done, though now she’s a quirky 30 year old and would love elf ears 😂

I'd do it in a heartbeat. Just like my DD will be getting braces for her sticky out teeth. Life is hard enough without being a target for bullies.

My lovely stepson had his ears pinned back and he was so much happier. Although he wasn't bullied he had very low confidence due to his ears.
Recovery from the procedure wasn't to bad and the op itself was over and done with in very little time.
I'd go for it OP

It's not unreasonable for people to have bat ears pinned but I don't know at what age this is usually done. At eight she still has quite a bit of growing to do. Ask your doctor for a referral and take advice from there. In the meantime she can have a hairstyle that covers her ears surely.

Some children seem to 'grow into' their ears. Thinking back to when I was young, loads of little boys had sticky out ears under their school caps but when they were grown up, their ears looked normal and that was without surgery. Those that still had their very noticeable ears would either have them pinned or make a feature of them - Martin Clunes for example, they suit him :-). Girls can cover them up;

However get some expert advice.

Edi. This gives some useful info:

https://www.alderhey.nhs.uk/conditions/patient-information-leaflets/prominent-ears-surgery-otoplasty/

And in that multiverse, things are great.

But we live in this one. So OP will just have to do whatever she can to make sure her daughter isn't targeted by bullies, like good parents do.

Be guided by your daughter OP. You're a good mum for caring that she doesn't get targeted or feel low worth about this particular thing.

I’m surprised that the majority are for it.

I think it should be something she has to ask for.

I think hearing from my mother at age eight that she thinks I needed cosmetic surgery would be a blow to my self esteem. I know people are presuming she will be bullied which also wouldn’t be good for self esteem but it’s not a given.

Absolutely get it done. It’s just the same as removing a huge mole or birthmark on the face or braces for sticky out teeth. It is fine to do small cosmetic things that will make their life so much easier and be less self conscious.

How rude. Did it ever occur to you that not everyone thinks the same things are pretty or ugly as you do?

I have to say that I thought the example picture the OP shared just showed a pretty little girl and I don't think I'd have particularly picked up on the ears if we weren't talking about it. If anything, they give her a nice, unique look that in no way detracts from her prettiness, in my opinion.

I think we're in Jennifer Gray's nosejob territory in that you risk removing all lovely uniqueness from people (especially children) with this sort of nonsense idea that everyone finds the same things ugly or pretty, and that everyone must aspire to the same boring, 'inoffensive' aesthetic.

Dull, dull, dull.

As a general comment, I'm also absolutely shocked by the number of people in this thread getting behind cosmetic surgery to an 8 year old, full stop, let alone one who has expressed no distress about any of her features and who has not had a bad word said to her about them by anyone else in her life.

Particularly given those circumstances (but in general anyway) what sort of message are we giving children when we say:

1. In order to be acceptable to others, you must surgically alter yourself;
2. This is a reasonable expectation in order to be treated with kindness and respect (even if there's currently no indication you wouldn't be anyway); and
3. You are not robust enough to handle any unpleasantness from anyone, so must always take preemptive, defensive action to make sure that you do everything in your power to avoid the possibility of someone being nasty to you.

No wonder there's a mental health crisis.